Chapter 53: Fuck you, Jobu

They settled in.

Ebon Hydra joined them and would man the guns facing down East 33rd. Their leader was a stocky butch woman with a crew cut and a perennial cigarette in her mouth called Lou. James liked her plenty; she was course, direct, and had a laugh like a siren.

It felt strange to move to the fore and take point with so many capable men and women watching from behind. An Abrams tank was in place, its presence hugely reassuring and projecting a sense of immovable strength, but the mix of Ranger and special forces made him feel like an imposter; they’d trained for years for this exact moment only to step aside and allow civilians to take the trigger.

Had to be galling.

Still. James gazed up at the slender corridor of sky that ran down 5th Ave. What were you gonna do? Nobody said the demon apocalypse was going to be fair.

“Kelly, this is Star Boy. All good with you?”

“Star Boy - Richard - all’s fine here. Any word of the Fourth Wave?”

“Nothing yet, but we’re due like a ten-month pregnant woman, if you know what I mean. Keep it frisky, out.”

“That guy needs to lay off the Redbull,” said Jason. “It’s not healthy to completely replace your blood with caffeine.”

James snorted and examined the setup again. It looked solid. Becca and Serenity were at the two flanking Ma Deuces, noise-cancelling headphones around their necks, chatting with their reloaders. There was a massive pile of ammo cans beside each gun, easily ten thousand rounds each. Add in his own pile of ammo beside the third gun waiting for him, and they had enough 50 Cal’s to drop an army.

Which was the entire plan.

Concertina wire was strewn back and forth across 5th Ave going two whole blocks down, and remotely detonated mines had been placed at the intersection of 32nd and 5th. Sandbags around their location made him feel ever so slightly safer, but even the armored plates that protected their flanks were mostly just for show; the Nem2’s could leap them with ease.

Looking off to the side, he saw where Ivory Hydra and Crimson Griffin was setup what looked a mile away west on 33rd and Broadway, the far other corner of their monster block. 34th and 5th was just a stone’s throw north, but the outpost on Broadway was frighteningly far.

Bjørn caught James’s expression. “What are the odds the Nem’s will just pour out of the windows along 33rd?”

“I dunno,” said James. “But if we shoot a 50 Cal down that way we’ll tear up our people.”

“Hell,” said Jason. “Even an M4 has an effective range of 550 yards. That outpost can’t be more than three hundred yards out.”

“So, just supposing,” said Bjørn. “What do we do if Nem2’s start dropping from those windows and crossing?”

“Let them go,” said James softly. “We’re not here to kill every single one, just the majority. Most will be coming from farther down city. They’ll take to the streets for ease of movement. Doesn’t make any sense for them to enter random buildings to exit through windows. Not till the holdup on 5th drives those in the back to look for alternate routes.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” said Bjørn.

“All units, this is Star Boy,” crackled everyone’s radio. “Fourth Wave has begun. Confirmed sighting in Staten. Get ready, and may the Force be with you. Out.”

James wiped his palms on the seat of his pants and hustled over to the Ma Deuce. Sat, slid his legs under the gun, and then smiled tightly to Private First Class Morris. “We locked and loaded?”

“You know it, sir.” Morris was pale but focused and looked so painfully young that James had trouble believing he was a Ranger. “And another ten thousand rounds to go when you burn through those.”

“Good to hear.” James inhaled deeply and took hold of the twin vertical handles. The butterfly trigger was in the center, and there was no safety.

God damn, it was a big gun. The barrel was as long as he was tall, and the thing had heft. It was balanced perfectly on its tripod, but someone had said it weighed 128 lbs. with the tripod included, and James believed it.

“Best put your headphones on, sir,” said Morris, raising his own.

“Shit, yeah.” James pulled his up, and the whole world went snug and quiet. Voices faded to the faintest of murmurs, and he heard his own pulse, a solid pounding in his ears.

5th Ave was silent. The sun was overhead but hidden behind dirty clouds; everything was flat and desaturated. The asphalt was rough under his ass, his boots wedged against the tripod legs. The grips were stout and solid, and he itched to press the trigger, to just feel what this gun could do.

Serenity’s Ma Deuce coughed before James even saw the first Nem2. It was three blocks down, having just come out of a side street.

It collapsed as if clotheslined by a supreme wrestler.

James licked his lips then forced himself to relax. With no training, he was the backup, meant to help alleviate the press if things got too intense and the ladies needed time to reload.

Nothing for him to do right now but watch.

Then the show began.

The Nem2’s began to appear. Just like in Brooklyn, they came in singles and triples for a minute, and then a crowd just swarmed out into the avenue.

Gunfire was dull and percussive from the other stations, and even with the headphones on each shot was loud once Serenity and Becca opened fire.

They followed the same pattern. Single shots while they could, then timed bursts. Nem2’s fell apart before the burning bullets. Their sneering masks blew apart, their heads exploded like watermelons, their bodies splattered apart as if dynamite had detonated within them.

God damn it felt good to see them go.

But quickly, far more quickly than in Brooklyn, the sparse crowd turned into a flood.

Not only that but a bunch took to the building walls as soon as they realized they were being fired upon, dozens and then scores racing along the stone and glass like hideous praying mantises, their blade-arms flexing, their expressions leering.

Which made Serenity and Becca’s job harder: no longer could they just send burning led flying down the avenue, confident that they’d kill whatever was coming at them along the level playing field; now they had to wheel their guns up and track foes, reach out and touch them as they flickered along the walls.

Chips and chunks of cement, old stone, and even marble flew into the air, the buildings’ facades rapidly becoming riddled with huge holes. The sound was tremendous, but it wasn’t enough: the main wave was pouring down the center of the avenue.

“Fuck you, Jobu,” he whispered. “I do it myself.”

His Ma Deuce erupted in gray light, and he opened fire.

The whole machine gun vibrated to shocking life. The belt of 50 Cals fed itself into the breech, and the Ma Deuce spat them out with shocking speed, the whole of it shaking and sending vibrations up James’s arms. Even just moving the gun from side to side felt like coaxing a rhino to move.

Nem2’s fell apart. It was glorious, it was terrifying, it was beyond anything James had ever felt. He could sense his Smite flying down with each bullet, subtly depleting his reserves, the sheer rate of fire unnerving as he wondered how long he could sustain such a rate of depletion.

The Ma Deuce ran dry.

Morris lunged in, fed the new belt into the gun, nodded to James, who racked it three times and then opened fire.

But even those ten or so seconds had cost them.

When a wave is about to crash on you, any delay in the rate of fire is too much.

Still. Three Smite-infused Ma Deuces could put out a world of hurt, and together they drove the demons back again, shattering them, blowing them apart, causing cars to slump as tires were blown out, windows exploding, building facades to crater.

Peripherally, James could sense, almost feel Ebon Hydra unloading ammo down 33rd street. The same madness had to be happening on each street corner. An ocean sweeping in to wipe away their sandcastles.

The Nem2’s were growing frantic in their desire to reach the Empire State Building. They ran along the walls, and more and more of them took to leaping from the back, blocks down, filling the air with their snapping arm blades, only to plunge down again.

James took to rearing the Ma Deuce up, strafing through the air so as to blow up dozens in mid-flight, then wrestling it back down and sweeping it from side to side again to demolish the front ranks.

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Thank fucking god the 50 Cals punched through multiple demons at once.

But the wave wasn’t diminishing like the last time. Instead, even more Nem2’s were flooding into the avenue, so that it looked like a parade from hell, the enemy coming up over the growing mounds of the dead with ease, heedless of their own lives, hurling themselves again and again into the bullets.

And the front edge, for all it kept withering, was growing closer.

They were just too fast, too many, and too fearless for them to kill them all.

More gunfire suddenly joined their own. James risked a quick look over his shoulder. The Rangers had moved up and opened fire, a couple with Smite, most just unloading their M4’s into the horde.

It helped, but not enough.

“Shields!” shouted James, though his voice was swallowed in the roar. His hands were growing numb from clenching the handles, his arms tingling and sore already from sawing the gun from side to side.

Someone detonated the mines.

The entire intersection a block down turned into a firestorm. The percussive blast knocked windows out up and down the street, flames and smoke curling up five, six stories high, and hundreds of Nem2’s were flung about like twig toys.

For a moment the pressure on the front lessened, but then it resumed, the thousands upon thousands of demons pouring forth.

A scudding, chopping sound filled the air, and a Black Hawk swooped around the corner of the Empire State to pass low overhead, a deadly shadow that opened fire down the length of 5th Ave, the huge guns tearing a corridor of death down the street’s length. James heard thin, ragged cheers from a dozen throats, and felt it himself: we have fucking Black Hawks, assholes. What you got?

The answer was ever more Nem2’s.

The front edge got close enough that they started leaping at their position, first one, then five, then dozens soaring into the air to come down upon where James was seated.

Shields shimmered into place before each one, knocking them back, slipping back and forth again and again, Joanna, Olaf, and Denzel working their magic to keep the enemy at bay.

“Fuck!” James roared as his gun ran dry.

Morris jerked forward, grabbed another belt, but even ten seconds would be too slow.

The Abrams joined the fight.

James felt the very ground shiver. Morris looked back, his eyes widened, and then he grabbed the gun’s handles and hauled it aside.

James scrambled to his feet, relief flooding him as the huge tank rolled down the center of their line, guns firing, tank barrel lining up and then with a great thudding thok it fired a shell right down the center of the avenue.

The blast cratered two lanes, the shell aimed at the street a block down.

“Fuck yeah!” shouted Morris.

James hauled the ammo cans aside, Morris rushing back to help.

The Nem2’s fell back, the tank’s armament blazing away, shells flying forth every fifteen seconds to blow huge chunks out of the enemy.

“Set up here,” shouted James, bringing the Ma Deuce back and around. “Let’s go!”

Morris grabbed his belt of ammo, started feeding it in.

The Nem2’s started landing on the Abrams, their bladed forearms slashing at the armor. Which mostly deflected the cuts, but somehow each left an inch-deep groove where they cut, and they were concentrating on the tank barrel.

Rangers concentrated their fire on the Nem2’s swarming the tank, the Smite-enhanced bullets doing the most damage.

Star Boy was saying something over the radio but James couldn’t make it out.

He racked the Ma Deuce thrice and got to work.

Nem2’s were getting by alongside the building walls, a rippling black carpet that leaped at the last to fall upon their position. Shields did their best, but they could only block three at a time.

Serenity leaped to her feet, grabbed her Ma Deuce by triangular handle that rose from the front of the breech, and started hip-firing it into the air, her Bless-enhanced strength and agility allowing her to wield it like Rambo.

A Killer Egg swooped down, descending as if from heaven itself and opened fire with its miniguns once more.

But it was like shooting at a tsunami.

Morris leaped back.

James called Smite, opened fire.

At what point did he order them to fall back? Fall back to where? They’d discussed evacuation plans on choppers, but any chopper that dropped low enough now would be swarmed if the Ma Deuce’s fell silent.

The Abrams had come to a stop, its treads fucked by the demons, and with an echoing clunk the barrel was finally severed, the arm-blades carving through the steel.

Serenity’s gun ran dry.

Becca’s gun ran dry at the same time, the merc screaming with frustration.

James had been firing full auto, the belt disappearing into the breech, and his gun fell silent at the same time.

The wave of Nem2’s crested, broke, and scores of leaping demons fell upon their position.

Serenity tossed the Ma Deuce aside, drew one of her Sig Sauer’s and unloaded into the horde.

The gesture was noble, mad, beautiful.

The Smite-enhanced bullets took a demon square in the mask. Its head shattered, its body went limp, it died.

It was enough.

Your rank is now Novitiate 1

As the global first to reach this rank,

your new Benediction will be empowered with Gloria:

Heaven’s Assault | Empowering Light | Fortuna Aeviternum

The choice of your third Benediction

will determine your class.

You have 5 unspent points.

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